Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-05-13
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON
Subject: "What Books Shall We
Read? What Pictures
Look At?"

| Nifty thousand pieces of SiiUer. Acts xix, ~.
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus with
some lively sermons about the sins of that
place. Among the more important results
was the fact that the citizens brought out
their bad books, and in public place made
bonfire of them. see the people coming out
with their arms fun of Ephesian literature,
and tossing it into the flames, l hear an
economist standing by and saying: stop
this waste. Here are seven thousand five
hundred dollars worth of books-do you
propofe to burn them all up! If you don't
want to read them yourselves sell them, and
| let somebody else read them" mo" said
| the people, 'if these books are not good for
Us, they are not good for anybody else and
we shall stand and watch until the last leaf
has turned to ashes. They have done us
world of harm, and they shall never do
others harm" Hear the flames crackle and
roar
Well, my friends, one of the wants of tho
| cities of this country is great bonfire Of bad
books and newspapers. We have enough fuel
to make blaze 200 feet high. Many OF the
publishing houses would do well to throw into
the blaze their entire stock of goods. Bring
forth the insufferable trash, and put it into the
fire. and let it be known, in the presence Of
| God, and angels and men, that you are going
to rid your homes of the overtopping and un-
deriving curse of proaigate literature.
The printing press is the mightiest agency
on earth for good and for evil. The minister
OF the Gospel, standing in pulpit, has
responsible position; but do not think it is
as responsible as the position of an editor or a
publisher. At what distant point of time, at
what far out cycle Of eternity, will cease the
influence Of a Henry j. Raymond, or a Hor-
ace Greeley, or a James Gordon Bennett or O
Watson Webb, OF an Erastus Brooks, or q
| Thomas Kins3a3 Take the simple statistics
! that our New York dailieS now have q circu-
! Los ~ nirrb+ I,,DIro1 nd
sand per day, and add to it the fact that three
of our weekly periodicals have an aggre-
gate circulation of about one million, and
then cipher if yon can, how far up, and how
far down, and how far out, reach the influences
of the American printing press. Great God!
what is to be the issue OF all thisi. l believe
the Lord intends the printing press to be the
means for the worlds rescue and evangelical
tion and | think that the great last battle of
the world will not be fought with swords and
guns, but with types and presses-a purified
and gospel literature triumphing over, tramp
ling down and crushing out forever that
which is depraved The only way to over
come unCean literature is by scattering
abroad that which is healthful. May God
speed the cylinders of an honest, intelligent,
aggressive, Christian printing press.
| have to tell you this morning that the
greatest blessing that ever came to this nation
is that of an elevated literature, and the great
est scourge has been that OF unclean literature.
This last has its victims in all occupations and
departments. 1t has helped to fill insane asy-
lums, and penitentaries, and almshouses, and
! dens of shame The bodies of this infection
| lie in the hospitals an0 i'll the graves, while
| their souls are being tossed over into lost
eternity, All avalanche of horror and deSpairl
The London plague was nothing to it. That
counted its victims by thousands, but this
modern pest has already shovelled its millions
into the pharnnl -lO1GA Of thp morally 1a1H
| The longest rail-train that ever ran over the
| Erie or Hudson tracks was not long enough
or large enough to carry the beastlinesS and
the putrefaction which have been gathered
up in bad books and newspapers Of this land
| in the last twenty years
| Now, it is amid such circumstances that
| put, this morning, question of overmaster-
ing Importance to you and your families
What books and newspapers shall we read?
You see | group them together. A news
paper is only book in a swifter and more
portable shape, and the same rules which will
apply to book reading will apply to news
| paper reading. What Shall we read2 Shall
our minds be the receptacle Of everything
that an author has mind to write2 Shall
there be no distinction between the tree of
! life and the tree of death! Shall we StoOp
down and drink out of the trough which the
! wickedness of men has filled with pollution
and shame2 Shall we mire in impurty, and
| CDaSe lallUttSUlC WlIl-O-Un9-WlS,( across UD0
swamps, when we might walk in the bloom
ing gardens of Godl mol For the sake of
our present and everlasting welfare we must
make an intelligent and Christian choice.
Standing, as we do, chin deep in fictitious
literature the first question that many of the
young people are asking me is: ''Shall we
read novelsp | reply: There are novels
that are pure, good, Christian, elevating to
| the heart and ennobling to the life. But
have still further to say that | believe that
ninety-nine out of the one hundred novels in
this day are baleful and destructive to the
last degree A pure work of fiction is history
and poetry combined 1t is a history of
things around us, with the licences and the
assumed names of poetry. The world can
never pay the debt which it owes
to such fictitious writers as Hawthorne and
Mckenzie and Landon and Hunt, and
Arthur and Marion Harland, and others
whose names are familiar to all. Thefollies Of
high life were never better exposed than by
HsEsT tRa Ts mSms IF he tns5 at
in the writings of Walter Scott. Cooper
novels are healthfully redolent with the
breath of the seaweed, and the air of the
American forest Charles Kingsley has
smitten the morbidity of the world, and led q
| great many to appreciate the poetry OF sound
health, strong muscles, and fresh air. Thack-
cray did a grand work in caricaturing the pre-
tenders to gentility and high blood. Dickens
has built his own monument in his books,
| which are an everlasting plea for the poor,
and the anathema of injustice. Now, | say,
books like these read at right times, and read
in right proportion with other books, cannot
help but be ennobling and purifying; but
alas for the loathsome and impure literature
that has come upon this country in the shape
! of novels, like a freshet overfiowing all the
| banks ofdecency and common seuse! They are
coming from some of the most celebrated pub
fishing houses of tho country. They are coming
with recommendation of some of our religious
newspapers. They lie on your centre table
to curse your children, and blast with their
Internal fires generations unborn You find
these books in the desk of the school miss, in
the trunk of the young man. in the steamboat
cabin, on the table of the hotel reception
room. You see a light in your chld's room
late at night. You suddenly go in and say:
What are you doingm, II am reading. "
"What are you rcadingm "a book" You
look at the book it is bad book. "Where
did you get itm II borrowed it." Alas,
there are always those abroad who would
like TO loan your son or daughter
a bad book! Everywhere, everywhere an TN
clean literature. l charge uponit the destruc-
ton of ten thousand immortal souls, and
bid you this morning wake up to the magni-
tude of the theme. l shall take all the worlds
literatllre-good novels and bad, travels true
and false, histories faithful and incorrect,
legends beautiful and monstrous, all tracts,
all chronicles, all epilogues, all family, city,
State and national libraries-and pile them
up in pyramid of literature, and then shall
bring to bear upon it some grand, glorious.
infallible, unmistakable Christian principles.
God help me to speak with reference to my
last account, and God help you to listen
I charge you, in the first place, to stand
aloof from all books that give false pictures
of human life. Life is neither tragedy nor
farce. Men are not all either knaves or
heroes. Women are neither angels nor furies.
And yet, if you depended upon much of the
literature of the day, you would get the idea
that life instead of being something earnest,
j nticnl is n